In an angry protest over the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the kidnaping of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, the Mexican government on Monday suspended cooperation with the United States in the fight against narcotics trafficking and called for a revision of the nations' bilateral extradition treaty. The Foreign Ministry called the court ruling "invalid and unacceptable" and said it "violates the essential principles of international law."

Ruling in the case of slain drug agent Enrique Camarena, the Supreme Court gave U.S. agents broad power Monday to forcibly abduct foreign nationals on foreign territory. Even when the United States has signed an extradition treaty and has pledged to respect the sovereignty of a foreign country, U.S. agents may unilaterally seize a foreign national and bring him to the United States for trial, the justices said. "This is a matter for the executive branch," not judges, Chief Justice William H.

A federal judge in Los Angeles set bail Monday at $10 million for a doctor abducted from Mexico at the behest of U.S. officials to stand trial for the torture-murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico. U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie initially said he would not set bail for Humberto Alvarez Machain, but he then changed his mind. Alvarez's lawyers asked Rafeedie for bail because the doctor has been in custody for 19 1/2 months waiting to find out if he is going to stand trial.

A wide majority of Mexicans favor a free-trade agreement with the United States even though many fear it will make Mexico overly dependent on a neighbor they already view as wielding too much influence here, according to a Times Poll conducted for World Report. Nearly half the Mexicans interviewed in the nationwide survey predicted that Americans would treat their country unfairly in business dealings, and many felt the U.S.

Miguel Angel Rodriguez, 18, recently left his job in a U.S.-owned furniture manufacturing plant here to strike out for his ultimate destination: New York, where relatives and, he hopes, better-paid work awaits. "There's no future for me here," Rodriguez said as he stood by the rusted steel curtain that marks the border, eager to make his break north. A few miles to the east, Irma Aragon, a mother of eight, said her job assembling radar components at another U.S.

Mexico's negotiations to join the United States and Canada in a free-trade agreement are whetting the appetites of other Latin countries. Chile wants in, too--and soon. So does Colombia. Virtually all countries in the region, except for Communist Cuba, endorse President Bush's Enterprise for the America's Initiative, a proposal for a free-trade area that would stretch from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. It would be an economic community to rival Europe's, and the U.S.

If a free-trade agreement between the United States and Mexico is ratified, it will bring a wealth of economic benefits to California and Mexico, including a tripling of trade between the two in the 1990s, according to a study released Monday by Bank of America. California will "gain considerably" from such an agreement primarily because Mexico will become more prosperous, the study predicted. "We are quite optimistic about the effects of a free-trade agreement," said Frederick L.

At closing time in Tijuana's "Industrial City" east of downtown, the streets fill with young workers, mostly teen-age women, departing from jobs in foreign-owned assembly plants known as maquiladoras. The spotless paved streets and the rows of factories--housing high-tech manufacturing giants such as Sanyo, Matsushita and Casio--belong to a well-oiled industrial metropolis that employs 70,000 people in more than 500 plants in this border city.

There is no doubt in Arturo Espinoza's mind that a free-trade agreement between the United States and Mexico would be great for his business. Espinoza, the manager of an electric supply company in Chula Vista, said such an accord would dramatically boost sales to contractors south of the border by eliminating the tariffs that Mexican customers now pay. But Joseph S. Francis could not disagree more.

When Harvard economics professor Lawrence H. Summers was tapped to be the World Bank's chief economist early last fall, conservatives grimaced and liberals smiled with joy. Summers had been chief economic adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis in 1988 and is a nephew of liberal economist Paul Samuelson. The assumption was that he would advocate changes to slow the bank's push toward more free-market economic policies.